The Lost Order (Cotton Malone, #12)

by Steve Berry

He spotted sudden alarm on his host’s face. An unusual sight given Joseph Henry’s somber reputation as one of America’s leading scientists, not to mention the man’s prestigious title. Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.

civil war raged just across the river in Virginia, though the conflict seemed to be in its waning days. Everything had changed since Gettysburg. Over 250,000 Confederate soldiers lay dead. Another 250,000 languished in Federal prisoner-of-war camps, and 125,000 more were crippled and wounded. Where before a Southern victory had seemed possible, it appeared now that the high tide of the Confederacy had finally run out.

an establishment was chartered that called for a library, museum, art gallery, and lecture hall, as well as a building of liberal scale to accommodate it all. The resulting Romanesque edifice, in the style of the 12th century, with long wings, tall towers, arches, and a slate roof had become unique to the country—its shape and red sandstone exterior like a monastery. Which had been intentional, creating a startling contrast with the Greek Revival architecture that dominated the rest of the capital city. Joseph Henry hated the finished product, calling it a fantastic and almost useless building. A sad mistake. But many had started referring to it by another name. The Castle.

a Smithsonian investigation conducted in 1909 that had involved a prior expedition to western Arkansas. Nothing had come of that journey, except that its lead researcher had been killed when a couple of hunters mistook him for a deer. It could have been an accident, but Cotton was not naive enough to think that a locally elected sheriff never looked after his constituents—and rural Arkansas at the turn of the 20th century seemed the precise definition of local.

X marked the spot. And there it was. The tree stood at least fifty feet tall. Upon it were carved 65 inscriptions. He knew that because Thomas had been here a month ago and counted them. But there’d been an incident. A headless effigy, pockmarked with bullet holes, was suspended over the trail. Strung up from a tree like a lynching, dangling over a pile of spent shotgun shells. Inverted crosses had been painted on the trees all around. A line of string had led from the effigy down to the shells. The message clear. Go away.

He approached the tree and noticed the carvings. He ran his fingers slowly over a bird, a bell, and what appeared to be a horse with no legs. He’d been told by a botanist at the natural history museum that a beech tree’s thin, smooth bark grew slow, preventing cracking. So a mark made on a beech would still be there decades later. Many of the carvings were filled with moss, others warped from decades of growth.

near the ground line, he found the number 7 chipped into the rock.

He lifted the softball-sized stone and turned it over. A quick swipe with the brush and he spotted two letters. SE.

The assumption now became that SE meant “southeast.”

Danny Daniels hated funerals, avoiding them whenever possible. As president of the United States he’d attended precious few, delegating that solemn task to others. Now, as an ex-president, he had no one to send. No matter, though. This funeral was an exception to his usual rule.

“Why do you believe Alex was murdered?” “There’s no other explanation that makes sense.” CHAPTER THREE ARKANSAS Cotton examined his prison.

A government of the people, by the people, and for the people should live under the same rules it passes for the people.

The House of Representatives and the presidency had terrified the Founding Fathers, every one of them deathly afraid of popular excesses. So the Senate was created as an impediment against hasty lawmaking, designed to be an antagonist to both the House and president. That was why senators were originally chosen by state legislatures, not subject to general election. When that changed in the early part of the 20th century, with the adoption of the 17th Amendment, so, too, had the Senate, metamorphosing into something the Founders would definitely not recognize.

“Why do you think Alex was murdered?” he asked. “The day before he left for Tennessee, he told me that he had to make sure something monumental didn’t happen. So I stretched those boundaries again and asked.” He waited. “His answer was cryptic. He told me that if

we make ourselves sheep, the wolves will eat us.”

“Benjamin Franklin sa...

He left the notebook on his desk in the apartment, with all those books I mentioned.” She pointed to the pendant. “The notebook was brown leather with that symbol embossed into its front cover. A bit too coincidental, don’t you think?” He did. “The man who went inside the apartment took only the notebook and the books. Nothing else.” “And this is why you think Alex was murdered?” “He didn’t just fall off a cliff,” she said. “It makes no sense. And that man, with a key to the apartment, might prove my point.”

He got the message. Get to the point. “I’d like to ask you something. Are you satisfied with the official conclusions regarding Alex’s death?” A curious look came to her bluish eyes. “You’re not?” “That’s not an answer.” She sauntered away from the rain-smeared windows. “I suppose it’s not. But that’s an odd thing to ask a widow on the day she buries her husband.”

He headed for the great room. Out of office four months. And already committing crimes.

“Granddaddy is a knight,” Lea said. “Show them.” Morse rolled up his right sleeve to reveal a faded tattoo.

“The cross and circle,” Cotton muttered. “You know it?” the old man asked.

“I know all about the Knights of the Golden Circle.”

He stared down at the notebook in his lap, the circle and cross visible in the leather. “It’s a wheel cross,” Diane had said. “Or a sun cross. An ancient symbol of the sun, for good luck.”

All her life she’d heard stories about the Knights of the Golden Circle. Her master’s thesis had dealt with 19th-century clandestine organizations. Groups like the Brotherhood of the Union, the Freedom Societies, and the Circle of Honor. Advisers who read it called her work brilliant and urged her to publish it as a book, but she’d refused. Instead, for the past three years she’d been working quietly trying to implement a plan first conceived 170 years ago.

The Knights of the Golden Circle sprang from the Southern Rights Clubs of the 1830s that openly advocated a reestablishment of the African slave trade, which Congress had banned in 1807.

Some even have argued that the Order’s roots stretched all the way back to the Sons of Liberty during the American Revolution.

Local chapters were called castles, and collectively the Knights of the Golden Circle became the largest, most dangerous subversive organization in American history. By 1860 it boasted 48,000 members across every state and territory.

Cotton had heard the stories since he was a little boy. His great-great-grandfather on his mother’s side, Angus Adams—who’d fought in the Civil War as a spy for the Confederacy—had also been a knight of the Golden Circle. Letters and papers in his grandfather’s attic talked of a conference held in 1859 at the Greenbrier resort in what was then Virginia. Nearly 1200 came, including cabinet members, governors, and congressmen. They approved a sixty-page booklet—Rules, Regulations and Principles of the American Legion of the Knights of the Golden Circle—which expressed the organization’s intents and purposes.

“Part of the lost Confederate treasure you’re after.”

“I’ve been studying all of this in great detail. The Smithsonian archives have a lot of information on this subject. Millions of dollars in gold and silver disappeared after the Civil War. Nobody has any idea how much.”

“Oh, I get it. This is a test. To see how much I really know. Okay. I have five words for you. Knights. Of. The. Golden. Circle.”

“He’s in the rotunda, just outside the Regents’ Room,” he whispered in her ear. “There’s nothing there of any historical value. Zero to steal. I prepared those exhibits myself.” But apparently he was wrong.

She again noticed the display case, a huge gold monstrosity, its glass front in pieces scattered on the floor. “Do you know what he was after?” she asked. Rick nodded. “I see exactly what he came for.”

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” “Your words?” She shook her head. His lack of knowledge of history was embarrassing. “Lincoln’s. And he was right. You’re about to be put to that test. Don’t fail.”

They rode for a few minutes in silence. Then his father stopped and dismounted. He did, too. In the underbrush, near a stand of elm, he saw the rusted remnants of an iron strongbox. “That came off a stage robbed near Hot Springs back in the 1870s.” On one side, visible through the rust were the faint letters WELLS FARGO. “Jesse James left that here when he hid the gold it contained. He was a knight of the Golden Circle. All those banks he robbed. That gold ended up in these hills, hidden away, belongin’ to the Order.

Killing Martin Thomas had been the only option. If Thomas had done his job, accepted their generous payment without becoming greedy, he would have let him be.

“In 1846 President James Polk decided that the fastest way to increase the size of the United States was to have a war with Mexico.

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo gave the United States what would later become Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, and California.

“In 1854 the Smithsonian Institution sent a team to the newly acquired American Southwest for mapping and geological research, one of our first scientific expeditions. At the time Jefferson Davis served as secretary of war under President Franklin Pierce. Davis was secretly approached by a newly formed group called the Knights of the Golden Circle.”

The Order had a specific interest in Mexico and the Caribbean, wanting to acquire them to form a new southern empire.

“Mr. Chief Justice, regardless of what the attorney general has said, this is a matter for law enforcement, not an intelligence agency. A murder has been committed. You should involve the police and the FBI and cooperate fully with them.”

“Those were the days of the Klan,” Morse said. “Everybody focused on them and their cross burnin’s and lynchin’s. They were bad people. That wasn’t the knights. The KKK was somethin’ else entirely.”

Roosevelt did in fact ban the private holding of gold. Executive Order 6102. May 1933. Congress ratified that action in 1934 with the Gold Reserve Act. All of that changed, though, in 1974 when Congress again legalized the private holding of gold.

As an adult he’d finally learned the truth about the Knights of the Golden Circle. Contrary to any romantic notions, both before, during, and after the Civil War it had been a subversive organization that openly supported slavery and engaged in murder, sabotage, and terror. Enough accounts had been written by men who’d been part of various local castles to know that violence had been an integral part of its modus operandi. And not only against outsiders, but against its own members, too. Today, with no hesitation, it would be labeled a dangerous terrorist organization. It was what happened after 1865 that remained murky. From his reading he recalled that the Order lingered for about a decade, taking on new names. Eventually, more militant branches became the Ku Klux Klan, but the main line seemed to have disappeared from history.

Stamm told him how he had been inside Martin Thomas’ apartment when he heard two shots. He ran outside to find Stephanie on the ground, bleeding, a car racing away. “Was she there when Thomas was killed?” Stamm nodded, then recounted the rest of the evening’s events. “Do you think the person who shot Stephanie was the same man from the Castle?” he asked. “Who knows? I didn’t see a thing.”

She seized the moment. “Which means others are onto you. They also claimed to be knights and knew the handshake and the right words of greeting.” A look of concern came to Proctor’s face. “That’s disturbing to hear.

She needed a diversion. “There’s a lot of gold here.” He nodded. “Somewhere in the range of $50 million worth, depending on the purity, which is usually quite good.”

“This is one of several American history archives we have in the building,” Stamm said. “It deals specifically with the 19th century, and most of this stuff has never been displayed.”

my ancestor, Angus Adams, figures into this. Why was I specially recruited?” He listened as Stamm told him about an 1854 Smithsonian expedition to the newly acquired American Southwest that also involved some covert reconnaissance by the Knights of the Golden Circle. “Your great-great-grandfather was part of the expedition, working secretly with the Order,” Stamm said. “How much do you know about Adams?”

Angus Adams had been one of the Smithsonian’s early hires, a painter who evolved into a first-rate illustrator. A trunk in his grandfather’s attic contained several lithographs Adams created while working at the Smithsonian. In the time before photography, art was the only way specimens could be memorialized.